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Black Boxes to Track Driving Habits?
Another submitter sent in a related submission about the collision data recorders in many late-model cars - which serve a similar purpose as the black boxes described above, but generally only record the last five seconds before an accident.
geemon writes "With the recent stories of rental car companies using GPS to track how and where their patrons are using their vehicles, this information about autos from 1996 and newer having an airplane-like accident "black box" capability was a complete surprise. Tucked under the drivers seat of most GM vehicles, the "black box" can store a variety of info such as vehicle and engine speed, braking, and seat belt usage. Info from an accident reconstruction service that uses this data can be found here. Called "event data recorders", these devices were, "...Originally designed to improve air bag performance based on the severity of the collision, the event data recorder can tell traffic accident investigators about the car's speed; engine RPMs; how far the accelerator pedal was pressed; if the brakes were applied; whether the drivers seatbelt was buckled and what warning lights were on - all from five seconds before impact..." It seems that GM and perhaps Ford have been using this for some time. Here is one company that makes the Windows based retrieval hardware/software combo for $2500. Imagine the uses of this data that law enforcement, your insurance company, and lawyers may have after your next little mishap."
If you are in an accident and the other party's insurance company takes the vehicle, they will check the black box to try to shift the liability from their client onto you.
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Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
Larry Selditz will begin selling a teenager's worst nightmare in November - a small black box placed in a car that allows parents to track exactly how their child is driving on the highways.
No. A teenager's worst nightmare would be a little black box that reports their "parking" *winkwink* habits, not driving.
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faeryman
So, how long before the insurance companies persuade the states to mandate these devices in every car? Or raise our rates hugely and then give a little of it back if we put in the box?
e phone tin-foil hat paranoia for just a day or two? This kind of sensationalizing gets really old when every single piece of technology is just another tool for The Man to spy on us, regardless of legitimate uses (sound familiar?) it might have.
Can we stop with the black-helicopters-are-watching-me-through-the-tel
First, either kids or criminals. Then whichever of the first two wasn't gotten. Then, those who'll accept extra benefits for it (generally implemented by removing said pre-existing benefits and then only giving what you had before back if you submit.)
Finally, it's mandatory.
This is the time to oppose this stuff and set limits if there will ever be any at all.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
[listening to silence]... Do I hear any outcries? No.
Americans will swallow this just like pervasive credit history control, mandatory live long ID numbers (hello, Soviet Union), "Under GOD!" daily pledges (fuck those atheists), Id check, face recognition, mandatory 10-day address registration for all non-citizens.. and list goes on and on..
Losers.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
People who disagree can use public transportation. Hopefully, mass transit will get a much needed boost because of people who are unwilling to be tracked.
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With the "Last 5 second" black box I don't see much of a threat to privacy. It isn't like they're tracking where you're going or keeping tabs of any driving habits, and its certainly not reporting anything back to anyone without actual physical contact. Since you own the car (and thus the black box) I would assume that if anyone did want to get ahold of it against your will they would have to get a court order.
Frankly I'd like to have one of these babies in my car. It would remove a lot of uncertainty around what caused an accident: ("As you can see Judge, I was indeed stopped and my brake lights were working when the idiot rear ended me")
After it's installed how hard is it to take out and leave somewhere?
Johnny pulls in the drive way after coming from a techno drug laden rave fest...
"Johnny, as your parents we're starting to become concerned about you..."
"W..What do you mean?"
"Well according to our black box, you've been spending 7 hours a night at the movies."
"Oh, uh.. right. Ya, uh.. I admit it, I'm a movie junkie."
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
I can understand why black boxes are in airplanes - its a huge liability issue. The more info gathered on crashes that do happen may reduce the chances of paying customers dying in the future. It makes good sense from a PR point of view. However, I would contend that black boxes in cars would do little to alleviate motor vehicle related deaths. We know *why* people crash: Many drivers are goddamned morons. We know that many teens are goddamned morons on the road as well - we don't need a black box to tell us that. Rather than putting these black boxes in cars to spy on our teens, we need to deal with the cause, not the symptoms: bad teen driving comes from a combination of outside pressure, overconfidence and under-training. For heavens sake - invest the money in teen driving training instead of these boxes! And parents, do us ALL a favour: Stop buying your children these expensive rockets on wheels!! Make them get a job to buy their OWN vehicle - it'll make them think twice before doing anything stupid that might wreck it.
Or don't buy your kids cars at ALL. That's where the, "I can do what I want with this car, mommy and daddy will just buy me a new one" mentality comes from.
I used to commute on CA-17, which connects Silicon Valley with Santa Cruz. It's always full of people who think nothing of driving 80 mph on a windy mountain road, who think anybody who observes the speed limit is doing it just to piss them off, and who basically exhibit behavior that wouldn't be tolerated anywhere except on the highway.
And that's what it's all about, isn't it? Communication. One reason people love their cars is that it's the one place they don't have to listen to anybody. Unfortunately, lots of people abuse this solitude. If you behaved, say, in a line at McDonalds the same way people behave on Highway 17, people would communicate a lot of anger to you. (That kind of communication while driving is known as "road rage".) Attempts have been made to communicate to the over-assertive driver. With results even -- whenever the CHP ups its presence on 17 the death rate goes way down. But the concept communicated is not "speed kills" but rather "be a good little boy when daddy's watching."
If some people end up getting supervised because they think good behavior is just a game, they've only themselves to blame.
I have a friend whose mother was waiting at a red light, when another vehicle backed out of a drive way and into her car pretty hard. When the police came, the driver of the other vehicle had the audacity to claim that my friend's mother actually backed into him and tried to pin the fault of the accident on her.
Fortunately, a person who saw this happen hanged around until the police came and was able to refute the other driver's fabrication.
If the car had a black box, the police officer could have quickly determined that my friend's mother's car was stationary up till the moment of impact regardless of whether a nice person did or did not loiter around at the crash scene.
Granted, people might complain about details such as the car's location and a log of speeds. These issues can be solved by convincing law makers to dictate a standard set of statistics said auto boxes would record.
I have a webcam. I put it on the floor so I can watch my dog all day while I'm at work. I do it because it helps me keep an eye on her, it's fun, other people like it too, and it hurts nobody.
When I have kids (God permitting), I may consider putting the webcam on the baby's crib. It would be fun, other people would like it, it would be a good way to keep an eye on the baby when nobody is with him/her for whatever reason, and it would hurt nobody.
Once that kid starts moving around, and growing up into a person, I would *NEVER* subject my children to that kind of oversight. I can imagine it would be VERY detrimental to their social life. Children need to live lives seperate from their parents. God knows there are things I've done (and still do) that my parents don't need to know. I'm sure my kids will do the same, and I don't want know about it (as long as they aren't hurting themselves or others).
You *NEED* some privacy in your life. I will NEVER vote for somebody who supports making something like this mandatory (and I hope my stubborn side will continue to keep this true, even as I grow old and raise kids of my own).
Bryan
No you don't own the car - or rather, you won't in a moment.
Having been in a crash that totaled my vehicle (gotta love people who turn left in front of you without looking) I can tell you what happens:
After the police and reporting nonsense your vehicle (or parts remaining of) go to a garage or adjusters location to be assessed. Once assessed the insurance company will tell you how much they will give you for it.
Here's the catch: They are buying the car off you.
When you go to collect your $ you sign and turn over the ownership, giving the insurance company total ownership. They are now free to do what they will with it... including checking the "black box".
So if you're car is totaled you might want to pull the box if you can. Mind you, they might have a few questions for you about where it went.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
And the version included a cabin sound recorder to capture the last few seconds of activity before impact.
Usually people said, "Oh shit!" some, occasionally you'd hear snoring, but they did find a disturbing trend.
On large 4x4's in the deep south, the last thing said was "Ya'll hold my beer and watch this."
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Some vehicles, especially those manufactured during the mid to late 90's already have a black box that *they* neglected to tell us about. If you're curious, its normally located beneath the driver's seat. From what I understand of the hidden black box, is that it only stores retains driving information for a few seconds, but stops recording when a serious event occurs, such as an airbag sensor being triggered. The concept is that law enforcement would then be able to use the black box data to make critical determinations in accident investigations, such as speed, braking, etc.
I'm not 100% sure about why these weren't put into widespread use, but I believe the necessary laws have not been passed, so law enforcement is unable to use the data. Not all vehicles have been equipped.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
a few years ago, let's say 1997-8 or so. I would have made my company go bankrupt quicker!
E EE IIIIIIII
*This is a tale of dot com glutony*
I was working for a small startup with a good amount of capitol. I was averaging a trip a week down to our LA office to deal with all the windows problems. (Remote wasn't possible, the CTO thought that running HIZ software through a firewall/Router/Tunnel would make it run bad)
Anyways aside from the problem of having a lunatic for a CTO my main issue was making sure that if the LA office needed me that week that they arranged all travel.
Well sometimes things were forgotten, and one week they forgot to rent my car for me. I was in the burbank airport, at the budget rent a car counter...
"Mr. Toqer we're sorry but we have no reservations for you!"
"Awe fuck, they slipped upped again" I muttered to myself. "Ok then what do you have left??
"We have a 1998 Convertable Jaguar XK8!" Oooh my pulse quickened, I was going to be there 3 days, sportin that ride in LA would be tits! So I called my CEO to see if it would be ok.
"Yo, CEO, your office manager forgot to reserve my car AGAIN! All the other rental places are out of cars and all thats left is a Jaguar Xk8"
"How much?"
"$350@day"
"Do it! I want to see you here in 30 minutes!"
Man, what a rush. I had never, and I mean NEVER EVER driven a car that fast in my life. I hopped on the 405?? and headed towards Thousand Oaks. I put the pedal to the medal and I felt like I was the millenium falcon going into hyperdrive! It went from 0 to 110 in no time flat.
Well towards the end of my trip I thought i'd go see the sunset strip by myself. I wanted to see the viper room where river phonix died (favorite actor, stand by me, ect) I made it a point to have a beer at about 9 of the joints on the strip. Fully loaded with a buzz I hopped back on the 101 to thousand oaks.
I look back now, it's not that funny. I really could have hurt myself, or some innocent bystander. 25, young dumb and full of cum.
Well, not really an exciting end to this post, just that I somehow managed to make it back to my hotel without wrecking or getting pulled over. Next day I handed the keys back and swore I would never drive anything over a "econo class" again. I'm not sure I can responsibilly handle that much power.
PUNCH IT CHEWIE
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAE
--toq
first, every teen that drives like a jerk/idiot I can show you EXACTLY where they got that habit.
Their parents. If a child grows up watching daddy tailgate that little Kia in his big-bad yukon while trash talking, "Man this asshole is doing the speed-limit.. I wish I could just push him out of the way" or watches mommie floor it up to the barrels and arrow-board in a construction area and FORCES her way in to the merged traffic at the last second..
This is how these teens that drive like idiots and morons get their driving habits... from the idiots and morons that had and raised them.
And being a regular commuter..The numbers of drivers that drive like idiots and morons is increasing..
I dont think the parents should be black-boxing the kids... it should be the state, and pull their drivers license until 25 if the box reports idiot driving.... But then I also believe that the driving test/license requirements should be quadrupled, as with giving 50% of the traffic fines to the officer as an incentive to enforce traffic laws.
too many people are content with driving like morons, and they are breeding more morons for the roads.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I don't think any age is better or worse than any other
. The group made up of 16-year-olds are also shown to have a fatal accident rate of 42 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, compared to the average of two for ages 30-50. I'd say there's a sharp difference between age groups.
According to the California Office of Traffic Safety, drivers aged 15-20 made up 6.3% of the population, but were involved in 12.5% of the injury and fatality collisions (http://www.ots.ca.gov/campaign/youthq/brief.asp)
Unlike some places, our insurance here varies only on driving record (licence goes up by $25 every bad thing you do, car never goes up) which is the way is should be.
Your mention of SK means, I presume, Saskatchewan, suggesting that Canada is your home. Canadian insurance laws seem quite different from American insurance laws. I'm anxious for next summer to come around so I reach the three-year point when the collision on my record -- my fault -- comes off. The settlement was for $10,000, and my rates got boosted by about $450 a year, meaning that they get $1350 for me costing them $10K, not to mention whatever other incidental costs are there. Of course, I've been paying my insurance company between $1200 and $2100 a year, depending on what I've been driving, whether I have a collision on my record, and my age group, so I guess it's fair. But I have no moving violations, and the two accidents have been relatively minor. I'm an odd exception to the rule.
My dad is even further off. He's been driving for 30 years, and has never had a moving violation or been in a single accident. He's come close, but never had one. Luck and skill. My middle brother, OTOH, is 25 and has four speeding tickets and three collisions, one of which resulted in the totaling of two relatively young cars cars and a six-month suspended license. I've seen his insurance bill, and it's not pretty. But it is simple statistics. Between the two extremes of my dad and his spotless record, and my brother, lies me. I see those, and I understand why the numbers on my insurance bill look as they do.
Canada has fewer people, generally a little more spread out than the United States, so the insurance laws and rates will be different. I know people who live in places where there's only a single paved road through town, and they pay less than half of what I do. They have lower chances of an accident. I drive the highways of Southern California, meaning I take risks whether it's my foot on the floor or not (usually not, but sometimes...). Part of living in the place I choose.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.